Verify a Notary's Digital Certificate

Learn about X.509 Digital certificates and how to verify a digital certificate for a notary on a notarized document.

Read this article if you're looking to verify a Notarize document.

Are you missing the green checkmark or getting an error?

Verify Digital Certificates

Verify the Digital Certificate for a Notarized Document

Digital Certificate Overview

Notarize uses two types of digital certificates to sign and tamper seal documents: one for the eSignature and one for each notary.

Notary Digital Certificate

Before a notary public is permitted to perform remote online notarizations on the Notarize platform, he or she must acquire a digital certificate and complete registration steps required by their commissioning state's Secretary of State. The Notarize platform currently requires notaries to obtain a digital certificate from IdenTrust Services, LLC ("IdenTrust"), which meets the standards required for remote online notarizations when digitally signing and sealing a document. When a notary public applies for a digital certificate, IdenTrust will take steps to verify the applicant's identity. Once verified, IdenTrust will provide the applying notary public with a X.509-compliant digital certificate issued under the IdenTrust Global Common Certification Authority Policy program, which is cross-certified with the U.S. Federal Bridge Certification Authority under the Federal PKI program.
A notary is responsible for maintaining control of their digital certificate, which they link to their Notarize notary account with a unique password created by and known only to them.

Notarize Platform eSignature Digital Certificate

The Notarize platform uses a different type of digital certificate on documents that do not require notarization. Like the notary's digital certificate, this certificate is also issued under the IdenTrust Global Common Certification Authority Policy program. This certificate is for Notarize itself and is maintained by the Notarize team.

Are you missing the green checkmark or getting an error?

If your document is missing the green checkmark in Adobe or you're receiving an error message (such as "At least one signature has problems"), don't worry! This does not mean the integrity of tamper sealing the documents by Notarize is compromised or flawed, and the steps below should solve the issue.

Adobe has a stringent requirement called the Adobe Approved Trusted List (AATL), which allows Certificate Authority vendors and partners to become trusted by default. As mentioned before, Notarize uses IdenTrust, which is part of AATL, however, certificates issued to individual notaries are not necessarily included in the AATL program.

Establish Trust with a Root Certificate in Adobe

For a relying party — e.g., county clerk, courthouse, state agency — to independently verify the validity of a Notarize Digital Certificate, they must first install a file in their Adobe Reader or Adobe Acrobat desktop software. This file creates a trust relationship between the PDF reading tool and the IdenTrust Root certificate, which enables Adobe to issue the green checkmark if the digital certificate is valid.

Adobe Reader and Acrobat requires one-time trusting of the IdenTrust Root certificate. This can be accomplished by installing the IdenTrust-provided .fdf file on the computer to verify notarized documents.

Step 1: Download the file

To verify a notary's digital certificate and the Notarize platform eSignature digital certificate download the IdenTrust-IGC-Certificate-Verification.fdf file at the bottom of this article.

Step 2: Import the certificates

Two certificates need to be imported.

1. IGC Device CA 1: Used for the Notarize platform eSignature digital certificate
2. IGC CA 1: Used for the notary's digital certificate

Use the steps below to import these files. Once downloaded, follow these instructions to create the trust relationship.

Import IGC Device CA 1

1. Open the FDF file that you downloaded.
2. Select IGC Device CA 1 and click Add Contacts to List of Trusted Identities in the Data Exchange File - Import pop-up message that appears. 
3. Select IGC CA 1 under Contacts, then select IGC CA 1 under Certificates in the Choose Contacts to Import pop-up message that appears.
4. Select Trust.
5. Check the box next to:
   • • Adobe 6: Trust Signatures created with this Certificate
     • Adobe 7, 8: Trust this Certificate for: Signatures and as a Trusted Root
     • Adobe 9: Choose the Use this certificate as a trusted root 
6. Select OK. 
7. Select Import.
8. Select OK again.
9. Select Close if the box does not close automatically.

*The steps above also apply to Adobe Acrobat if installed.

Import IGC CA 1

1. Double-click on the FDF file that you downloaded.
2. Select IGC CA 1 and Add Contacts to List of Trusted Identities in the Data Exchange File - Import pop-up window that appears. 
3. Select IGC Device CA 1 under Contacts in the Choose Contacts to Import pop-up that appears.
4. Select IGC Device CA 1 under Certificates.
5. Select Trust. 
6. Check the box next to:
   
   • • Adobe 6: Trust Signatures created with this Certificate
     • Adobe 7, 8: Trust this Certificate for: Signatures and as a Trusted Root
     • In Adobe 9: Use this certificate as a trusted root
7. Select OK.
8. Select Import.
9. Select OK again.
10. Select Close if the box does not close automatically.

Verify the Digital Certificate for a Notarized Document

Once trust is established following the steps above, digital signatures on e-signed and notarized documents can be verified following the steps below. Note: You must have a downloaded copy of the document to be verified — i.e. you cannot verify the digital certificate directly within a browser or email software.

1. Open the document in your Adobe Reader or Acrobat desktop software. 
2. If the digital certificate is valid, you will see the signatures bar at the top of the document area, with the message "Signed and all signatures are valid".
   
   
3. To inspect the details of the digital certificate, click the Signature Panel button in the signatures bar.
4. Within the Signature Panel, you can quickly assess certificate ownership and validity and ensure that the document has not been modified since the signature was applied.
   
5. To further inspect the signature, you can open the Signature Details viewer, which will
   display additional information related to the signature owner and certificate authority.

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